The Review Club Forum Gabe's discussion

This is the place to discuss any of Gabe's pieces

Review up.

Okay so I have gotten some great reviews, and I am looking forward to finishing it up so I can edit down the stuff you have all pointed out.

I am moving this thread up because I am doing stuff in the WFO that is subtle and some of you have pointed it out to me as an error so I wanted to talk about it. The biggest thing I am intentionaly doing is regarding the word GOD.

I know that as a proper name, "Our Holy Father, God." God must be capitalized. But when you are writing we as writers have the opportunity to portray our characters meanings in the words they choose as well as how we use them.

So in the WFo I am of course capatilizing God when it is used as a proper name, but only when it is used by a believer. When non-believers such as Cash in Chapter 4 uses the word, it is not capatilized. I am curious what everyone thinks about this.

Let me know,

Gabe

MAN! I spent a damn long time putting in strikes, colors, and a bag of other html tricks for my review just to find out they are not supported anymore on writers cafe. That review would have given Belle a run for her money (well not really) but it was still pretty good. Anyways I made a a lot of suggestions, edits, etc. Please read through them and compare them to what you have written because they will not pop out at you.

Thanks Anthony, I appreciate your review and the time you spent trying to make it all pretty, but I am really just interested in the nitty gritty.

thanks again,

Gabe

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I hear ya Gabe but if they wouldn't have changed the rules things would have been a lot clearer and easier for you when you got around to revising. Now it just looks like a jumbled mess... Ahh well next week.

Gabe,

I've considered doing the same thing. As in having characters who are not believers say god instead of God, but I decided to go ahead and use God because even if they don't believe, it's still gramatically correct. God is used as a name for He who is not named. Or if you are a history buff, it's what we call the God of zenology (my spelling on that is way off I know) which is the religon the Jewish adopted as their own, changed a couple things and started calling the god Mazda, God. Just like you wouldn't call Jesus... jesus. Or Budda... budda... Or Isis... isis. God indicates the God of the Christian/Jewish/Muslim Bibles and lets the reader know you are talking about Him, instead of one of the other gods.

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Oh Kim, thank you. The Zorianastrian (spelling still wrong) gods were bugging me about who they were (Ahura Mazda and Ahriman).Thanks for bring that up. And the cult of Mithras is pretty neat too.

Julie, Bele, Cameron, and Mike... Thanks for the reviews. They are insightful and I think you all had some great ideas to help me make WPF a better all around story.

Belle, I thank ou for the line edits and some advice on how to clean up my grammar and sentence structure. It is really my weakest point in my writing and I would be lost without you advice. Thanks...

Julie, thanks for the slips I made... can't seem to get my head on straight with my grammar. Thanks for being my biggest fan when it comes to my characters, I always know when I've made you like someone. Thanks for letting me know I have done a good job.

Cam, thanks for your time on the review. I think your correct about the parents, i will work on flushing them out. As far as the mowing the lawn and other duties, what is a coming of age summer story without the reality of coming of age?

Mike, Thanks i appreciate your thoughts. You were unsure about the plotting in it... all I can say is that the relationship between the two brothers is really the plot. I know that it's not guns and fast paced action like the WFO, but it's there. Was that not clear?

Thanks everyone,

Gabe

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I figured toward the end that it would be about the brothers, and I gather that the older brother will be the main character. And don't get me wrong, I'm not looking for non-stop/die hard/yippiekiyay action. I guess I'm just wondering what you're planning for the boys to go through? Maybe I just have to read the next chapters to find out...

Gabe,

You are definitely right. I'm just kind of curious about what they have to do with the story. I mean I really like the whole Pete thing. I think it's well done and creepy. I enjoy the interaction between the characters. As far as the lawn thing, is it just a setting thing? Is it a character thing? Is it a metaphor thing? I think that's what's bothering me. I think you're right that having it is good for showing what his or your life was like (I'm still assuming that this is biography), but I think there's not enough conflict to it, maybe. I mean I used to mow 3/4 of an acre every Saturday and I can relate to the whole idea of it. But there is either too much time spent on it, or not enough. I mean mowing a lawn is a battle, and I'm assuming it's something you had to do, but from the way it reads it's kind of ambivalent. Rather than something you want to finish so you can get done and go out. The same thing with the woodworking. Eh... Might just be me.

Cameron

Hey Belle, Thanks for the review. I appreciate your comments at the top, and they make me wonder. I know that the brothers have dipped into what seems like murder plot yet all of the chapters have mostly focused on the brothers relationship and their lives in the neighborhood and the family, yet everyone wants to know how this moves the plot... It seems that everyone has commented on that while not even thinking that the brothers relationship and the family dichotemy might actually be the plot.

This is my stab at something a little more literary, while still having a little neighborhood kids hijinx. I'm glad that everyone is concerned with Old man Pete and his "issues" but don't let it fool you, there just might be more to the story than you think.

I think we have a had a thread on this topic before, but does anyone in the group feel that you should trust the writer and what they represent in their stories as important... even if it is not clear at the time?

Thanks again belle,

Gabe

Gabe -

To be fair, I'm not sure what you mean by trusting the writer. I guess my biggest question as far as WPF is what is the conflict? I don't think you necessarily need to have the primary conflict pop up right at the beginning of the story, and hell you can have a series of smaller conflicts throughout the story. But I'm not seeing the start of an arc yet. Does that mean you won't present one? No, it doesn't.

Does it mean that you need to do it? Well in the end that decision is up to you. But part of my review process is to comment on anything I think might be an issue. Does it mean that it is an issue? Well again, that is up to you to decide.

Now there are plenty of ways to write a literary novel. I won't and can't say which one is necessarily right or the best. That's up to you.

Cam, what I mean by trusting the writer is... trusting that the writer is presenting the information apropriatley and in a way that will affect and make the most sense to the reader.

gabe

Gabe -

No offense intended, but doesn't that run contrary to the idea of reviewing? To put in other terms, when I pick up a book the author has 20-40 pages to prove to me that the book is going somewhere. That holds true for literary as well as more commercial fiction. Do I implicitly trust that the writer is going to write a book I enjoy? Depends. If I've read other books from that author, yes I might be more inclined to give the author more rope to hang himself with.

Now if it's a brand new author, and I'm reading a book and it isn't making the cut, then it goes right back down. Does the author have the plan? Probably. Am I going to waste my time wading through until the author reveals it to me? Probably not.

But that might be why I don't read a whole bunch of literary novels, so take it for what you will.

Cameron